Love, not war

Twelfth annual Palm Peace Parade set for Sunday

The Pasadena Palm Peace Parade will add a new wrinkle this year when it hosts a street theater show acting out a moral clash between wisdom and wealth.

The parade will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, which is Palm Sunday on the Christian calendar. This year’s parade will once again act out Jesus’ march into Jerusalem on that day. According to the Bible, Christ entered Jerusalem on a donkey and less than a week later was tortured and crucified.

The parade will begin at the Messiah Lutheran Church, 570 E. Orange Grove Blvd., and end at the corner of Garfield Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. The theme of the 2014 Palm Sunday Peace Parade is “Love, Not Mammon: Celebrate the Deep Wisdom of God.”

“Our parade will call attention to the economic interests that fuel war,” said parade spokesman Bert Newton in a written statement. “From the ‘military industrial complex’ to the securing of oil, gas and other exploitable resources, the American way of life has become intensely entangled in the profits of war. Over half of our taxes go to the military; and our country spends six times more on the military than China, 11 times more than Russia and 27 times more than Iran. We believe we can and must end war just as the abolition movement helped end legalized slavery.”

Puppets will be used to act out the conflicts between wisdom and wealth, Newton said.

Last year nearly 200 people from churches throughout Pasadena took part in the parade, which included musical performers and donkey rides for children. The parade also helped promote a gun buyback program and peace resource fair that raised nearly $26,000 and attracted dozens of local community groups involved in reducing gun violence.

“We are challenging people of faith to take action so that we can turn our economy away from war towards the peace we all yearn for and seek,” Newton said.